A Tale of Two Siblings
by armyofstrider
Summary: After defeating Lord English, the Beta Kids are transported to an alternate timeline where Earth's population is mysteriously wiped out. Four years later, John and Rose, and Dave and Jade are know it is up to them to keep the human race going. But John and Jade aren't exactly happy with the parameters of Karkat's old shipping grid.
1. 1-1: Tensions (John and Rose)

**1.1 – Tensions (John and Rose)**

John and Rose sat on the couch, bathed in the flickering luminescence of the television. A fire smoldered dimly in the fireplace from which Nana's picture still hung. Through the lone window in the living room, faint starlight sifted through the glass panes and dappled the floor with a four-box pattern, bisected by the window grid, a shape eerily similar to the Sburb logo.

The grove of harlequin figurines had been replaced by a grove of wizard figurines, as per Rose's liking. The bronzed vacuum cleaner was nestled in one corner of the room, while a bag of knitting spilled haphazardly onto the floor in another. Scarves, hats, and sweaters littered the floor, adding to the mess. They were all in shades of blacks and purples and all unseasonably warm. John heard Maplehoof whinny faintly from within the utility-room-turned-stable.

John removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose where square indentations had been branded with a violet-red. Having to still wear the same glasses at the age of twenty as he had as a thirteen-year-old was a painful reality. He wished now he had thought to alchemize a new pair before they had left the Incipisphere four years ago. Everyone had re-alchemized their clothing to better fit for the years and years they still had left to live outside of Sburb.

Rose sat at the other end of the couch, barely paying attention to _Requiem for a Dream _which she had insisted they watch, as opposed to _Drive Angry _which John had been meaning to get around to seeing if only to validate the fact that his hero-worship of the delightfully tacky Nic Cage was still a thing of his childhood past. Instead, her eyes flitted in rhythm with her needles, enmeshing the strand of rich purple wool into the body of yet another scarf. If she made one more damn scarf in the middle of July, John was sure he would be hanging himself from the balcony with it wrapped around his neck, like one of Terezi's scalemates hanging from the branches of her hive.

John stared into her stoic, inexpressive face as her disquieting violet eyes and her fingers continued to twitch in rhythm. A lustful fire had just recently kindled in his lower belly and was yearning to be tended to. The closed-off expression upon the smooth features of Rose's face, however, made it clear to John that he would be taking his own irons out of the fire.

When it came to preserving the human race and repopulating Earth, Rose seemingly had no interest in the mechanics that necessitated such vital designs; at least those are the words she would have used to describe it, anyway. Naturally enough, John was more enthusiastic about the sexual aspect of their duty, but somehow with Rose his excitement and passion was always tempered into a grudgingly sterile series of motions. John sighed and replaced his glasses.

"Can I presume that sigh is anything indicative of your exasperation with my choice of films?" asked Rose, still not pausing or looking up from her work. On screen Jared Leto, who John recognized from _Lord of War, _and Marlon Wayans were wheeling an ancient television set past a tall chain fence.

"No, no," John said defensively.

"Then what is it?"

"I just . . . have to go to the bathroom is all."

"Mmm."

"Do you want anything while I'm up?"

"No."

"Okay." John had gotten into the habit of tacking on an "okay" to the end of every interaction in a valiant, yet vain attempt to extend the curt conversations that dominated their lives. The closer they had gotten physically, the more distant Rose had become emotionally, which was saying something.

John ascended the stairs to the hallway adorned by a large framed picture of an awfully exquisite wizard and the picture of someone wearing a beagle puss who might or might not have been Michael Cera. He stopped where the two hallways intersected and looked to his left at the door which led to the balcony where he would inevitably hang himself with one of Rose's scarves one day. In front of John was his old bedroom which he no longer slept in but continued to keep most of his things in; Rose had commandeered the study for the same purposes.

John turned the knob and entered.

Much of it remained unchanged since his thirteenth birthday. The bed, desk, dresser and magic chest were still all in place. The movie posters had been taken down and most of the graffiti he himself made had been wiped clean. His old computer had been replaced with the Cosbytop, which still managed to keep an internet connection despite the fact that all the modems had clearly quit functioning long ago. Some things were best left unquestioned. The only thing the Cosbytop was ever used for was pestering Dave and Jade, anyway. Occasionally though when he would be knocked over by the bowling ball of nostalgia, he would scroll back through all the old pesterlogs, rereading conversations with his friends and the trolls, back before his and Rose's friendship and turned into a quasi-adversarial romanceship. It was amazing sometimes to see how much he had changed and grown up since then and would sometimes be engulfed by a wave of shame whenever he would stumble upon an especially naïve or childish conversation.

John flipped open the magic chest, where he kept the few things of importance that had been brought back from the Incipisphere. The Vrillyhoo Hammer, his god tier clothes, as well as Colonel Sassacre's text all lay on top, while a plethora of less remarkable items were buried beneath, out of sight. John had detached the god tier hood and had worn it to bed as a nightcap when he and Rose had first returned to his home together, but the jape quickly lost its funny and the hood had been laid back with the rest of his Sburb souvenirs.

There was a particularly loud crescendo from the living room, which jolted John back from the miasma of emotions plaguing his room; at least _Requiem's _soundtrack was interesting. He was aroused of the delicate fact that the coals in his belly had engorged into a raging bonfire. John hadn't lied when he told Rose he's was going to the bathroom, he just hadn't been specific on he planned to be doing in there. More stimulating material than simply a stack of old Game Bro's was stashed in the bathroom.

John hurried off to take care of himself.


	2. 1-2

**1.2**

John stood above the toilet, his right hand held against the wall before him, his left pistoning up and down frantically. His breath came in spastic jerks through clenched and then unclenched teeth. His glasses had slid down to the flushed and sweat-sleeked tip of his nose. His pelvis jumped forward rhythmically until everything went rigid and he finally came a haltingly ample stream. Exhausted, he rested his forehead against the wall. After a brief respite and a quick clean-up, John descended the stairs.

On screen, Ellen Burstyn was poring over an assortment of colored pills. John walked on past the couch and Rose, still at her craft, lips pursed tightly. He made his way into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Inside was a flashy array of TaB, Faygo, Alternian Soft Drink, various orange sodas, and a half-empty bottle of apple juice which Dave had left behind weeks ago (Rose frequently stashed a bottle of gin somewhere in the kitchen but it was not in the fridge as far as John could see). John grabbed a bottle of Sunkist. Accompanied by a crackling hiss, John unscrewed the cap as he looked out the kitchen window. The swing set and Slimer pogo ride were still in the yard, though the paint had begun to peel and rust, neither having been used while they were in this particular timeline. John could hear Maplehoof clopping behind the closed door.

John went back to the living room, letting himself fall heavily back into his spot on the couch. An eye dialated enormously on the television screen. The force of John's sit caused the entire couch to jostle, causing one of Rose's needles to go errant. Her eyebrows arched rancorously and she threw down the half-finished scarf.

"If my hobbies are so irksome to you," she said, eyes staring forward at nothing at all, "perhaps you could at least vocalize your annoyance into some kind of dialogue rather than channeling it into vindictive sabotage."

"Jegus, why does everything I do have to be related to some subconscious–."

"_Un_conscious," Rose growled.

"Whatever! You're acting crazy. Why can't you just relax?"

"Relax?"

"Yeah," John said, hoping this was going somewhere. Instead, it was Rose that was going somewhere: the kitchen. After a minute and the minute noises of glass and sloshing liquid, Rose returned with a martini in hand. She sat back down, looking dead ahead without a glance at John.

"I'm sorry I ruined your scarf," John said.

Rose just sipped her martini.

"And I'm sorry I called you crazy."

Rose sipped deeper.

"_And _I'm sorry I called it a subconscious."

The corner of Rose's mouth betrayed her by twitching upward. She gingerly set her glass on the arm of the couch, her face more calm and languid than before. John decided it was best not to push his luck any further and just keep his mouth shut while she was contented.


	3. 1-3

**1.3**

Contrary to John's belief earlier that night, his masturbatory excursion turned out to be unnecessary. Rose lay supine beneath him on the bed in the master bedroom. The glass of her sixth martini lay on a pillow above her head, tipped onto its side. Wrinkles in the grey top sheet radiated out from their bodies at the center of the slightly shaking bed which rapped a steady rhythm against the wall. Their clothes lay in a pile at the foot of the bed.

Rose's short hair was splayed out in a halo around her head. Her eyes were shut, her mouth open slackly, sighing slightly every time John immersed himself deeper. She had her legs flat against the bed, apart in a lazy V, her toes pointing in opposite directions. Her body lay relaxed and apathetic, her skin milky white over the Grimdark which lay dormant below.

For the second time that night, John's face was flushed and pouring sweat. His teeth gritted and eyes squinted. The square black frames of his glasses lay discarded somewhere in the vicinity of the clothes pile. His back was a concave arch from where his and Rose's pelvises banged bonily against one another. His palms pressed into the cushion of the mattress between the motionless lines of Rose's arms and the gently swaying flesh of her smallish breasts. John's knees also dug ripples into the sheet, his lower legs cocked upwards, the arches of his bare feet facing the ceiling.

This ordeal was going on twelve minutes now. Rose had held the minimum amount of interest possible while John's penis slid between the humid lips of her vagina. John's veracity had peaked at about minute two, still a ways off from climax, whereas Rose was not even in the ballpark of orgasm––she perpetually lingered somewhere beyond the turnstiles. Having already ejaculated once in the past two hours, achieving fluid pay dirt was a difficult task for John, not to mention the lack of stimulus from Rose. His skin was beginning to chafe a delicate red and the skeletal framework of his pelvis was beginning to ache. John cast about in his mind for anything enticing enough to conclude this session.

While engaged in this vain bit of think-work, John looked down at Rose's face, below his own. Her tongue peeped out from her mouth, and greedily scoured her bottom lip, questing for any lingering booze there. John felt a shudder rise from within. He bent his neck to avoid seeing the woman with whom he had shared his only interpersonal sexual experiences. In doing so, the large picture hanging on the wall came into view.

The ornate frame vibrated on its nail due to the impact of the bed bumping the wall. The picture contained behind the thin pane of glass was had been taken just after leaving the Sburb Alpha session. Before a background of endless void and the girthy silhouettes of countless horrorterrors, the band of players who had defeated the Lord of Time had gathered for the last time. The surviving humans, trolls and carapacians alike, looked out from the frame each with their own looks of joy, rancorousness, or stoic irony. The larger rabble of dead trolls had also crowded in to be a part of the photo opportunity but apparently their likenesses could not be captured by a digital flash. John sometimes felt thankful for that, not having to see those spooky, staring eye-whites looking down at him in bed every night.

His focus settled on just his quartet of friends. He glanced from left to right, seeing the faces: Rose, his own likeness, Dave, Jade. John's gaze lingered on Jade, registering her appearance in the depths of his _un_conscious mind.

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, John felt the fluid pressure build up in the convoluted pipelines of his genitals. All at once he felt the dam about to burst. He bit down on his lip as his body tensed and stiffened, now attempting to prolong the apotheosis, which seconds ago he had been so desperate to achieve. His breath whined out past his teeth, which were staining red with the blood welling up from his lip. In one final motion, his pelvis jumped forward, and came a rocketing stream, Rose was barely cognizant of, in her indifferent drunken ennui.

John's mind shorted out in this one moment of brutal satisfaction, his unfocused eyes still fixed on the photographed image of his sister.


End file.
